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Crossing the Bar 





Crossing the Bar 

A LYRIC OF LIFE 
EVERLASTING 



BY 

GEORGE A. GORDON, D.D. 





THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



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Copyright, 1909 
By Luther H. Cart 




248818 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



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CROSSING THE BAR 



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CROSSING THE BAR 

A LYRIC OF LIFE EVERLASTING 



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r^ OR human beings like ourselves, 
dependent, finite, and frail, the 
question of the life everlasting 
must always remain in the sphere 
of moral faith. Even if it w^ere 
proved, as it may very w^ell be 
some day, that death in no w^ay 
impairs the vitality and force of 
the human soul, even then the 
endless continuance of life w^ould 
not thereby be demonstrated. For 
the endless years that stretch on 
before us have countless possibili- 
ties within them to a finite and 
dependent existence; and all we 
can say is this, that we shall live 
as long as He wills on whom 






CROSSING THE BAR 



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we are finally dependent for our 
existence. That seems to me the 
first clear, authentic, and satisfy- 
ing position on this mysterious 
question. 

We do not create ourselves ; we 
are not the authors, nor are we in 
the final account the supporters of 
our own being. The duration of 
our life rests with Him upon whom 
we are absolutely dependent for 
our being. God and God's will are 
the ultimate resting-place of our 
souls. Therefore on this subject 
we turn away from the world 
of scientific proof to the world of 
moral faith, from the sphere of dem- 
onstration to the sphere of moral 
and human values. We believe in 
God; we believe in the perfection 
of His intelligence, in the perfec- 





tion of His moral being; He is 
light without darkness and love 
without limit. That is our funda- 
mental belief, and He has made 
us so that we value above every- 

J thing else in the world a great 
and true intellect, a great and true 
character. These values transcend 
all others that we know. 

For example, here is this poet, 

j Tennyson. Consider his mind, 
how observant it was, how dis- 
criminating, how rich in its per- 
ceptions, how fertile in its 
thoughts, how gifted in its imagi- 
nations, how splendid in its ex- 
pression. Here is a mind endowed 
with poetic genius, a mind that 

I moves among words with a divin- 
er's charm, that selects from these 
words those that sing, and builds 




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these world-melodies into a great 
structure of music, into a vast 
world of art, and through that 
world of art enables the deep 
and sacred things of the human 
soul to speak, and speak with 
power. The intelligence of this 
poet was the creation of God ; this 
wonder so high, so fine, came 
from the Infinite intelligence. 
Has that finite intellect so rare, 
so brilliant, so wonderful, no per- 
manent value for God? That is 
the question. 

But Tennyson was not only a 
great mind : he was a great char- 
acter. He stood in the presence 
of the noble tragedy of the world, 
and felt in all its tides the presence 
and purpose and directive power 
of the Divine life. He stood in 



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GROSSING THE BAR 

awe in the presence of the moral 
order in human existence; in its 
nobihties and in its wreckage aHke 
he saw God. He became a lover 
of mankind, — the special love for 
his parents, his brothers, his kin- 
dred, his friends, and those who 
stood round him in the great com- 
munion of vision and of service 
ran out a river of life to the whole 
human race. He became the lover 
of his kind. Humanity had a 
value for him, and he stood in his 
heavenly vision as a servant of 
the higher needs of that human- 
ity, begging to serve men and to 
serve them forever. Had this 
character, so fine, so clean, so 
just, so great, no value for God? 
It seems to us that this character 
grace wafted from the 




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Sphere of the Spirit into time ; and 
on the boughs of this man's life a 
blossom appeared from the God in 
whom his being was rooted. Has 
that consummate flower no value 
for the Most High? 

This subject is for me bathed in 
the utmost tenderness. The most 
impressive and by far the richest 
service connected with the begin- 
ning of my ministry in this church* 
was the service on Friday evening, 
March 7, 1884, when I was re- 
ceived into its membership. I can 
see again the well-filled chapel and 
the company of strong and noble 
men, of beautiful and devoted 
women, families on whose hearts 
rested the welfare of this church, 
most of whom have long since 

iThe Old South Church, Boston 



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vanished from our sight. I can 
see again the eager and noble in- |J 
, I terest in their faces ; I note again 
the silence, so deep and so mov- 
ing, as I rose to speak in simplest 
words the fevs^ fundamental things 
of my faith ; and I feel again the 
response that came as I pledged 
myself in service to them. I see 
them rise to vs^elcome me, and I 
hear the w^ords spoken over us : 
"The Lord bless you, and keep 
you: The Lord make His face 
shine upon you, and be gracious 
unto you : The Lord lift up His 
countenance upon you, and give 
you peace." And after the song 
of praise and the benediction, I 
receive again the noble greeting 
of that noble band of Christian 
men and w^omen. They w^ere the 






CROSSING THE BAR 








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strength and the hope of this 
church then ; they were the treas- 
ure and the inspiration of their 
own homes then; they are now a 
precious memory to all who knew 
them, and such a memory they 
will ever remain. Whither have 
they gone? They have vanished 
from our sight. This world of 
value which they represent, a 
world of value to us, has it no 
value for GodP Did He care 
nothing for that which was so 
precious to usP Thus you see 
we are led by our questions con- 
cerning the dead back to God; 
in Him we live, and move, and 
have our being; upon Him we 
are dependent for every breath 
that we draw; for life, for 
strength, for all things; our be- 



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ing comes up out of His will; it 
is sustained in existence moment 
by moment through the presence 
and power of His will. He is the 
author, He is the supporter of our 
being, and upon His character and 
disposition toward us rests all our 
hope for this day and for all days. 
In life and in death we are the 
Lord's, and what our future is 
to be depends upon His will. 

Who, then, is GodP What is 
God? That is the great question 
of faith. By what means shall 
we read the character of the 
being in whose hands are the 
destinies of all souls ? How great 
and grave a question that is! 
How it recalls us from the petty 
things that exercise and divide the 
Christian Church! How trivial 









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and miserable seem these ques- 
tions that engross religious men 
so often, and that divide them, in 
the presence of the great question. 
Who is God and what is He in His 
inmost character? Everything 
comes back to that; our w^hole 
hope or despair depends upon 
our answ^er to that question. 

How^ shall we read the heart of 
the Eternal? We read it through 
w^hat is best in ourselves. We 
say it is He that hath made us, 
not we ourselves. When our 
souls are at their best, as v^e love 
our children, as w^e love our kin- 
dred, as that primitive, instinc- 
tive, divinely inspired love runs 
out into a great vision and a great 
passion and a great service for 
mankind, we take ourselves at 



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our best and we say, this heart at \ 
its best did not make itself; it is 1^ 
the bloom of another heart, the 
pulse of another being is in it. 
God is greater than our heart at 
its best, and we read the loving 
God through the love that He has 
given us as our best treasure. We 
go further and assemble a mighty 
host out of all peoples and kin- 
dreds and tongues in all time who 
have had the vision of good and 
the love for it and who have stood 
in darkness and in light in the 
service of that heavenly vision. 
We take this host, that no man 
can number, at its best; we take 
it in its inspired moments, when 
it has climbed to the highest alti- 
tudes of its humanity; and again 
through this humanity that did 




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not make itself, that has been in- 
spired out of the Infinite, we read 
the heart of the Eternal. Behind 
this host with its great soul of 
honor is the soul of God who 
made it. 

Thus we come to the supreme 
individual existence in the life of 
mankind — Jesus. He at His 
divine height did not make him- 
self; He has a God and a Father 
essential to the explanation of His 
being. Truly He says, '*He that 
hath seen me hath seen the 
Father." Jesus in the glory of 
His intelligence, in the love and 
beauty of His heart, in the awe 
and majesty of His conscience, in 
the power and the triumph of His 
good will is ah expression of the 
being, the infinite being in the 




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eternal world who brought Hun 
hither and who sustained Him in 
His service for man. 

Through ourselves at our best, 
through our race at its best, 
through the Lord and Master of 
mankind at His divine altitude 
we read the character of God, 
we call Him Our Father, our in- 
finite Friend, and face to face 
with His moral perfection, with 
His eternal compassion, we say 
the world that is precious to us 
is precious to Him. The mother 
with her infant slipping from her 
arms into the shadow of death 
feels that her sense of the inex- 
pressible value of that life is but 
a reflex of God's sense of its inex- 
pressible value. We bring our 
whole human world, with all its 



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GROSSING THE BAR 



values, with all its tenderness, with 
all its preciousness, and with all its 
mystery, and we lay it down and 
say. We risk everything here! 
Oh, how deep, how vast, how 
solemn, how grand, and how in- 
finitely dear it is to us ! And we 
believe, O Thou infinite God, that 
our world, so dear to us, is still 
infinitely more dear to Thee, and 
Thou wilt keep that which we 
commit to Thee against all the 
days and all the years ! 

There is our faith in immor- 
tality, Marcus Aurelius said, 
**It is good to die if there be 
gods and sad to live if there be 
none ! " All our work, if isolated 
from faith in the ultimate charac- 
ter of the universe, is doomed to 
disappointment, to weariness, to 



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dust, and to ashes at the end. 
The first article in all faith that 
is to live and lift humanity and 
fill our human homes and our 
human hearts with hope is this : 
' ' The eternal God is thy dwelling- 
place, and underneath are the 
everlasting arms." 

Now this is the atmosphere in 
which Tennyson wrote all his 
poems about the life after death. 
He had a world of values, and 
he believed that the world of 
values for man is a world of 
values for God. No poet, either 
in ancient or in modern times, 
has brooded so upon the life after 
death as Tennyson has done; no 
poet has brought into existence 
so many extraordinary expres- 
sions of our Christian faith in 






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the life beyond the veil. What 
a monument In Memoriam is to 
faith, to music, to insight; to the 
presentation by the poet to God 
of the vast and tragic w^orld of 
man for His love and for His pro- 
tection! In Memoriam is, hovs^ever, 
only one of the many expressions 
by Tennyson of this faith in the 
endless w^orth of man. His poem, 
Vastness, is another and one of 
the most impressive, and here 
and there slighter pieces con- 
tain deep insights, like that ex- 
quisite lyric, Wages; but I pass 
by all these tempting appeals 
and come to that song which is 
in your memory now^, and will 
be in the memory of our race 
so long as men believe in the 
hereafter, so long as they strive 



CROSSING THE BAR 



to overcome death by faith in 
God. 

I ask you to note the structure 
of this song. It is a kind of dese- 
cration to analyze a lyric like this, 
y yet there may be some justification 
for the analysis if it shall make 
,. this song, so significant to feeling, 
® equally significant to thought ; for 
great poetry understood gains in 
power upon the heart. There is 
one main figure running through 
the lyric, and the main figure is 
supported by secondary figures 
of exquisite meaning, a whole 
world of thought coming out in 
a single word or phrase. The 
thought of the poem, as you 
know, is the passage of a soul 
from the time-world into the 
Eternal — the passage of the poet 






himself from the time-world into 
the Eternal ; from the sense-world, 
with its richness, its color, its 
music, its charm, out into the 
vast, bare, sublime, invisible; 
and the main figure under which 
that thought is presented is the 
mariner putting out to sea. 
Tennyson had often seen the great 
ships passing the Isle of Wight 
in the dusk of evening. Here 
we take his secondary figure — 
the time — the sunset; and what 
does that mean? The light of 
the human world is gone; the 
evening star, that pulse of fire, is 
a visitation from the Eternal when 
from the dying man the human 
world has receded. '*One clear 
call for me!'^ — the great cry of 
the ship before the voyage begins.; 



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CROSSING THE BAR 

and that most tender warning 
which we all have heard — * ' All 
ashore that are going ashore! 
All ashore that are going ashore ! 
All ashore ! " 

Then comes another of these 
secondary figures: ''May there 
be no moaning of the bar" — 
uncontrolled regret, wild grief, 
hysteria are out of place; the 
transaction is high, majestic; 
the dying man is in grand com- 
pany and therefore such things 
must not be, and here we think 
of Socrates in the hour of death 
as he rebukes the impious sorrow 
of his disciples. 

Then there is the final figure of 
the first two stanzas, the tide, 
which is still secondary, and yet 
becomes in a way primary, — : 



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When that which drew from out the 
boundless deep 
Turns again home. 

The tide at the landing is the same 
as the tide in the heart of the sea. 
And human life is kindred with 
God; birth is but the shoreward 
sweep of the tidal life of God, 
and death is but the seaward 
sweep of that same tidal life of 
God. 

Passing now to the second 
stanza, we still have the main 
figure of the mariner, supported 
by exquisite secondary figures. 
*' Twilight and evening bell" — 
the ship has really started on her 
way ; you are no longer on land ; 
you are on the sea ; you hear the 
bell from the forecastle or from 
the stern peal out its eight ftotes. 






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CROSSING THE BAR 

** Twilight and evening bell" — 
you know where you are; all 
not going have gone ashore ; your 
friends are all behind you now; 
no voice can now be heard from 
the land. 

And then that next phrase, 
which seems to me one of the 
deepest in the whole poem : ' ' And 
after that the dark! " — the ship is 
speeding onward under a black 
heaven and over a black sea, 
lonely, casting no shadow, and 
the whole dear human world is 
irrecoverably gone. *'And after 
that the dark ! " — the infinite dark, 
the untraveled universe fronting 
the soul in majestic gloom, the 
deep dusk as it wears the shadow 
of the eternal. Here the poet 
returns in concern regarding the 



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manner of the human world 
toward him : 

And may there be no sadness of farewell, 
When I embark. 

There must be no inordinate grief, 
no outpouring of compassion for 
the departed, no hopeless, broken- 
hearted mourning. WhyP 

For tho' from out our bourne of Time 
and Place — 

this sense-world, this time-world, 
this space-world — 

For tho' from out our bourne of Time 
and Place 
The flood may bear me far, 

(oh, how far — God only knows 
how far!) 

I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
When I have crost the bar. 




Yes! it is forever true that here 





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we see in a mirror, darkly; but \ 
then, face to face. | 

It is my hope that these analyses jj 
of the main figure and the sup- I 
porting figures in this immortal 
lyric may make it more signifi- ■ 
cant and more dear to some 
hearts. May I now ask you to :. 
follow it without remark, without | 
the sacrilege of explanation, with- jj 
out the indignity of any comment 
whatsoever? Here it moves in its 
flawless perfection : 

Sunset and evening star, 

And one clear call for me I 
And may there be no moaning of the bar, 

When I put out to sea, 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep. 

Too full for sound and foam, 
When that which drew from out the bound- 
less deep 

Turns again home. 



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Twilight and evening bell, 

And after that the dark I 
And may there be no sadness of farewell, 

When I embark; 

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and 
Place 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

When I have tirost the bar. 

Read again the account of 
Tennyson's own death. On that 
October midnight, with the full 
moon riding in splendor and 
shedding upon sea and land 
a light more beautiful than the 
sun, he lay in his own room in 
his famous home, like breathing 
marble, full of dignity and full 
of peace. He asked his doctor 
what it meant. Death? To the 
affirmative answer of his doctor 
he replied, *'It is well." There 







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copy of Shakespeare 
in his hand, with the page turned 
down in Cymbeline at his favorite 
hne, '*Hang there hke fruit, my 
soul, till the tree die ! " and as 
the poet passed, his son read over 
him in death from the great Ode 
to the Duke of Wellington, these 
words of faith : 

On God and Godlike men we build our 

trust. 
Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's 

ears: 
The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs 

and tears: 
The black earth yawns : the mortal disappears ; 
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; 
He is gone who seem'd so great. — 
Gone; but nothing can bereave him 
Of the force he made his own 
Being here, and we believe him 
Something far advanced in State, 
And that he wears a truer crown 



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Than any wreath that man can weave him. 

Speak no more of his renown, 
iff Lay your earthly fancies down, 
j: ji And in the vast cathedral leave him, 

God accept him, Christ receive him I 




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